January 11, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
2 Comments

Will a list of resolutions make me happier?

This post is inspired by my friend Anne who has a blog about yoga and what it does for her life. When she turned 32, she made a list of 32 things to do in her 32nd year that would make her even happier. She has accomplished quite a few of her resolutions already and judging from her big smile every time I see her, I tend to think it might work!!

My list is 29 things I want to do in my 29th year because I think focusing on these resolutions or points or what you may call them, will make my life more full in a way. I am sharing them with you, because you may actually be able to help me accomplish some of the points. You may be REALLY funny and able to make me laugh all the time, or you may wanna beat me in tennis the first time and get your ass kicked afterwards. Whatever it is, give me a shout! I would love to hear your feedback…

 

  1. Get my blog up and running again
  2. Sports – either enroll in a new activity or do more sports with others
  3. Play more
  4. Sew more stuff
  5. Get massage or wellness treatments at least 6 times this year
  6. Go on a summer holiday with my friend (you know who you are) somewhere non of us have been before
  7. Go on a yoga retreat
  8. X*
  9. Seek to be with people who make me laugh
  10. Avoid places, people and situations that make me angry, sad, worried or insecure
  11. Take a walk at least 2 times a week
  12. Meditate regularly
  13. Experiences at least two new places in the world
  14. Prioritise those who prioritise me
  15. Write long letters to people I love and miss
  16. Seek to be in a job that covers my needs more than anything
  17. Engage myself in something that involves other people and fighting together for a good cause
  18. Read positive literature every night before I go to sleep
  19. Join at least one cultural, creative or artistic event every month
  20. Start a ‘things I appreciate’ diary
  21. Be more spontaneous
  22. Do things for myself – buy myself flowers and gifts and spoil myself
  23. Build my muse
  24. Participate in or join networks covering subjects I thrive for
  25. Work actively with self-respect and respect for others in all my relations
  26. Choose my battles
  27. See and welcome love in my daily life <3 caring, smiles, warmth, understanding, presence, happiness etc.
  28. Create something – big or small
  29. Rediscover my drive and passion and live it out

 

*one point on the list is called ‘x’ because it is too personal to go live….

 

December 12, 2011
by Kiri Weimann
0 comments

Let’s learn from our mistakes…

Some may call it naive, but I believe that EVERYTHING is possible. No exceptions. Knowing that, I find it remarkable that the western world is trying to ‘teach’ the people in third world countries how to live the RIGHT way.. Are we as successful when we think about it? Knowing what we know today, we would probably do a few things differently, wouldn’t we?

Let’s go back about 100-150 years. Most European countries had plenty of poverty, a very young public school system – mostly there for the elite. People from the lower classes of society lived in slums and the higher classes viewed them as if they were less intelligent and less worthy to life than they were. Revolutions flipped these thoughts upside down and created industrialism and society as we know it today.

Industrialism came with commercialism and created a place where we’d rather replace than fix. The ability to buy new things became a status symbol and poverty and slums were not seen many places in Europe anymore. However, and I think I will put that in capital!! HOWEVER! Industrialism and society, norms and values in popular culture as we know it today is a heavy weight on our planet, on life quality and is not catering to the challenges we are facing.

The school systems are ancient. Creative and energetic children are forced to learn to sit still and learn the same curriculum as they did 100 years ago, even though several studies show that they have a massive capacity to create amazing solutions that we need in order to sustain the planet we are living on. Ken Robinson makes it clear it his TED speech Schools kill creativity.

While we know that the current situation calls for a ‘different’ society, most projects in the developing countries are aimed at industrialization. What we are trying to do is to make duplicates of the western world in South America, Africa and Asia. But why duplicate something that we have proven to have such a high impact on the state of the planet?

I am certain that other people around the world have thought what I am saying here millions of times and I am also sure that they are doing their best to fulfill everything. So let’s be positive here, let’s learn from our mistakes and not think that we did all the right things 100 years ago when we know there can be better ways. Let’s build schools that have capacity for all types of intelligence-types and rethink what we are doing out there.

A few questions that may underline the issue:

Are we empowering African citizens by donating money to their corrupt governments? Is it effective to let 40+ children sit in a small room in 40 degrees heat to learn ABC from a teacher that takes bribes? Does it benefit anyone to be stigmatized? Poor. Sick. Black. Dumb. Hungry. Or would it be better to focus solely on opportunities and solutions and each individual’s potential?

I know it may sound VERY ambitious, but I mean it. If we want to change the state of the planet, we need to look for potential and opportunities. It’s right there in front of us.

November 14, 2011
by Kiri Weimann
0 comments

Are you using rubber, a hat, protection = CONDOMS?

This post is written to make you take part in UNAIDS’ new campaign motivating young people from all over the world to help them with their global strategy. I think some GREAT ideas can be born – do you think so too?

Ponderplanes wrote a post about how UNAIDS’ CrowdOutAIDS campaign has potential to change the world – though having been executed badly… I will try to do my best to change that and share as far in my network as I can.

The Campaign The idea behind CrowdOutAIDS is to stop AIDS and HIV to spread between young people and to make young people formulate the strategy through crowd networking, idea generation and collaboration across the globe. The set-up is a platform where young people connect, share their ideas, find solutions and act on them collectively.

I have heard stories that I hope are not true, but what if some people other places in the world actually believe that they can be cured from AIDS if they sleep with virgins? And that the chances get better the more virgins they sleep with….? That’s just one issue – information! However, I think a much bigger issue is to make young people use condoms. Even in Denmark I know plenty of young people who only care about not getting pregnant or getting clamydia or other disgusting diseases. You know what? That would just be a positive side-effect of the campaign, wouldn’t it? Eliminating all the nastiness!!! YAY!

I think UNAIDS have taken a major step in the right direction making this campaign. Even just making people connect and share on the issue will make awareness spread. Go sign up and join the campaign, share your ideas and make it ‘normal’ and ‘alright’ to wear a hat – even in less developed countries..

Read more about the campaign on CrowdOutAIDS.com .

Wanna change the world with me?

October 27, 2011
by Kiri Weimann
0 comments

Who’s responsible, really???

This post took place in my head a few weeks ago when I started actually listening to the radio commercials… I started wondering if advertising agencies, companies and ordinary people feel they have no responsbilty for the road society is taking?

If your neck hurts, do you then think a pill will fix it and make it stop coming back? If your marriage is boring, do you think having an affair makes it any better? And do you actually need some stupid hand-made basket from Kenya before you want to support the hungry?

Well, I was taking a short walk with my friend the other day and started noticing all the stupid little things NGO’s produce for people to buy them and thereby support their cause. They’ve read their ‘customers’ well, I guess.. I am just thinking… What you do need another basket for? Do you need it to show other people that you have a good heart? In that case, I can come up with quite a few other ways to show your heart’s nature…….!

For me, all this has to do with common sense and respect for the globe we live on, the other people who live on it and the people who will live here when we’ve left.. So if you wake up one morning, looking at your wife through 25 years and don’t feel joy and love for her, I think the most respectful thing to do is to let her have a wonderful rest of her life as a free person. The least respectful thing to do would be to cheat on her, leaving her to look like a fool, not having room for love in your heart for her. And this is where I start questioning how somebody (most likely more than one person) can decide to make a forum promoting affairs if your marriage is dying… Is it society that needs this forum? Or is it the founders of this forum who are manipulating people into thinking about their selfish needs?

Things don’t just happen. Neck pains are there because something is wrong in your back or neck or somewhere else in your body. Affairs happen because of selfishness or because love and respect have flown away. Pain does not go away because you take a pill and pollute your body.

Do we want a society where we don’t respect each other?

Do we want to support pill-society and keep eating pills to take the symptoms in stead of treating the cause?

Now that our society is primarily driven by consumers, think about WHY you do things next time you take a pain-killer, desperately need to have sex with your best friend’s wife or feel sympathy with disadvantages people.

You can do things differently. You can do things from your heart.

October 5, 2011
by Kiri Weimann
0 comments

Love banks, love tanks and being stressed and nice at the same time

Inspired by some interesting readings about love and balanced living and by my yoga instructor’s intelligent view of life.

A very complicated scientist I was forced to try to understand while I was studying said that people don’t contain knowledge and that knowledge is not knowledge until a person has managed to interact it. he is still very complicated and I am sure I already quoted him wrong.. However, the point is that I feel that i have learned something about life, about love and about being around other people in a positive way by reading these books and listening to my yoga instructor.

So… In this post, I will do my very best to inspire you to dig a little deeper and find your source of love or maybe understand why love is missing in your life..

Imagine yourself as a love bank. People deposit love and withdraw love from you. Your accounts can be very low from some people and very high from others depending on the amount of nice words, good deeds, presents and goodwill people have deposited in you.

Now, imagine the important people around you. Are some of them acting strange? Do they tend to get irritated with you easily or are some always doing you favors, helping you out etc.? Well, if the relationship to them is good, you have been keeping your account in them stabil or high – keep up the good work….! However, if the relationship is fragile, you may consider how often you express trust and confidence in them, how often you do them favors, let them wait for hours on you etc.

I have learned a lot from thinking this way. Sometimes, I am not even aware that I am withdrawing millions of love notes from someone and don’t really notice until he or she blows up like a small vulcano.

The vulcano scenario can happen for other reasons too. Imagine that each person is a love tank – kind of like the love banks, but always containing the same amount of love lava inside. When you are in a love connection with another person (not just as lovers, but sisters, friends or family counts here too), there is a small pipe connecting your love tanks and lets the love lava run from one tank to another.

if one person in the relationship is holding back anger or frustration and not telling the entire truth about it to the other one, this person is pushing down the lava in his or her own tanks and into the other person’s tank… Can you guess what happens then? YUP! If the other person cannot hold back the pressure from the other love tanks, it blows up!!

Holding back all the lava on both sides, makes the little pipe break and the relationship can be very hard to re-establish… I find this very interesting, because I never thought of it this way before. I have always been thinking that holding back feelings would only harm the person holding them back.

So……! What do I want you to do?????

Well, the solution is actually quite similar for both theories. It is all about expressing how you feel, telling the whole truth about your feelings. Doing something for others in order to deserve to get something back. Some people don’t even know why they feel angry, why they blow up. And this is where my fabulous yoga instructor comes in…..

In almost every class, she tells a story about balance. The balance between soft and hard, Shiva and Shakti, and action and stillness. Staying balanced is for her a combination of grownding yourself firmly into the ground in order to be able to give to others. One of the hardest things is to be stressed, but nice at the same time. Try playing with it a bit. When you have millions of things you need to do, you tend to focus and narrow in your mind on those things, forgetting to take your heart with you.

So, I guess the point of this post is that I want you to remember the love tanks and love banks in your daily life. At work, when you really need to reach a deadline, asking people to stay an hour more is a little easier if their banks are full and their lava is in balance. When you notice that you are running around stressed, take a few minutes and melt your heart. maybe you can actually be stressed and nice at the same time…..! 🙂

July 7, 2011
by Kiri Weimann
0 comments

Africa’s next chapter…..

Some thoughts on foreign aid, good intensions, sustainable development and how money can be awfully bad spent….

I came across a talk by Andrew Mwenda the other day. His talk made my head start spinning. It is still spinning around some fundamental questions that I think all people working with development, charity and third world economies need to put their heads around and consider carefully. I am not saying that all foreign aid should stop, or that all charity is useless. Not at all. What I am saying is: Listen to what he’s saying – carefully – some of it is worth more than gold……

First, view this 17 minute talk: Andrew Mwenda takes a new look at Africa

Andrew Mwenda has been highly critical towards aid agencies and charities because he believes they are only supporting ineffective governments and corruption. He has been charged for sedition (tilskyndelse til oprør) in 2005 because he discussed the cause of death of the Sudanese vice-president John Garang openly in a radio broadcast.

However, Andrew Mwendas articles have been published in leading western newspapers and magazines and he is highly respected by Western press because he displays what he calls the true Africa and not the pitty-Africa common media displays.

Andrew Mwenda poses some fundamental questions;
Did anyone ever become rich by receiving charity?
Why is foreign aid treating the symptoms and not the problems?
Why is Uganda not benefitting from duty free export of sugar to Europe, but importing sugar from South America?

What I don’t understand is that reasonable people in the international aid organisations can’t see what is happening. How can they think that Africa is only hopelessness and despair? Can’t they see that only 48 of 54 countries are at war? Haven’t they seen how rich Africans wear expensive clothes, drive big cars and live a wonderful life? Maybe they just don’t WANT to see all the positive news? Are they walking in the pitty-cloud?

I can’t help thinking about a youtube video that was being distributed once, showing how little the ordinary American in the street knew about other countries and the political situation in the world. Is it possible that well-educated people from all over the world believe that the media is displaying the truth and nothing but the truth about Africa???

I am very intrigued to know more on this subject and to discover a proper way to make Africans take the opportunities they have and are given and take ownership of the future.

IPO48, a networking portal for entrepreneurs and investors, is certainly taking their part in making opportunities and ideas become profitable business through events and competitions. You can read more about the concept on ponderplanes.com – a blog about social economy, CSR and sustainability.

Also former Managing Director of World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, believes that Africa can benefit from the aid that is being given, if only the governments would use it better. Her TED talk is definitely also worth watching, as she puts on the solution-hat and proposes infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure and discipline as the 4 most important catalysts to growth in Africa.

I hope that these two talks have made you start thinking and that it has made you interested in knowing more about the 48 other countries on the African continent. Personally, I would love to hear all the positive news as this can inspire me to think of new ways and new solutions.

June 22, 2011
by Kiri Weimann
0 comments

The art of fitting into a box

Written in a moment of helpless frustration, dreaming of a box-less world with support for creativity and innovation.

These past months have made me realise that my culture is filled with boxes. Some boxes are very obvious and are almost thrown at you every second, other boxes are more hidden. The hidden boxes tend to hit you harder than the obvious and visible ones.

I’ve grown up thinking that I could be whatever I wanted to be. I hadn’t realised that ‘what I wanted to be’ was limited by several boxes and that I, little I, was hidden under layers and layers like in a babushka doll. After getting my high school diploma, I stepped up one layer of the doll. The following years, I spent within that layer, within a certain frame of status, of possible job options. Moving out one more layer, I became a student at the university and new doors opened, because I changed boxes. This pattern continued until now where I am finally finding a way out of the babushka doll and starting to learn to live my own life.

Most people are comfortable inside the doll. Some because that’s how they’re taught to live. Some because the doll is their frame of reference. What I think very few people realise is that they live according to certain standards other people have set up for them. I agree that society would be a messy place if everybody tried to escape the babushka doll at the same time. There’s no doubt that the boxes help create structure, rules and boundaries. Adding to this, most people are happy living with structure, rules and boundaries.

What I think is rather interesting is that innovation and growth need creativity and space, it needs enthusiasm, risks and strange shapes. Hardly any new ventures are started inside a box. Most are more likely to be combinations of several boxes, creating new un-thought-of shapes and sizes.

How come the welfare system in Denmark is built around boxes when innovation and growth make the wheels go round? How come entrepreneurship (iværksætteri) becomes ‘self-employed’ (selvstændig) when you’re unable to work full-time and, hence, is impossible to combine with paid employment because you suddenly move out of the box you were in? How come someone who is unemployed has to fight the system for permission to start up a business part-time? And how come you are either unemployed or full-time employed? Why are initiatives to work part-time while applying for full-time employment dismissed?

What is our goal, really? Is it to rest on laurels like Nokia and learn our lesson too late? Being run over by emerging nations while picking our noses?

May 11, 2011
by Kiri Weimann
0 comments

Denmark! Where did love and charity go??

Written in the hope that my dear fellow Danes will be more aware of people in need. Not just in poor countries, but right in front of them.

The other day while I was cycling to work just as I reached the top of Valby Bakke [one of the steepest hills in Copenhagen, probably peas for the pro’s]. I hit a red light, stopped, and noticed an old lady. She was standing on the corner looking confused and anxious. However, what I also noticed was that several people, entire families, just walked by. They didn’t even look at her, nobody stopped to ask if they could help her.

I ended up getting off my bike to ask her if I could help her with anything. She was so confused and frightened, because she was lost. She needed to go somewhere at the other end of town and had no idea how to get there. Imagine if she was your grandmother or aunt. Wouldn’t you have loved if someone helped her find her way? Wouldn’t you be scared out of your mind if you were standing somewhere in Nørrebro waiting for her not knowing where she was, if something happened to her?

Needing a translation of the Danish word ‘næstekærlighed’, I called my dear choir teacher who’s from Chicago.. I told her the story and that I felt a need to express my concern somehow. She told me a different story that also upset me quite a bit.

One day she was walking up the side of the church while at work and a young man, well dressed and clean, walked up to her and asked if the church could help him. He wasn’t Danish, but had ended up here with no work permit, no permit to leave for Norway, but with a wish and hope that he could find work there. Having no money at all, this poor guy had been sleeping in the park for several days and had tried his luck in getting a meal at all the social centres around town. Same answer everywhere: ‘This service is only for Danes, sorry’.

This makes me wonder. Is our welfare system making us care less? Do we feel that the social security system should handle all those things for us? Or are we just too busy for love and charity?

To put all this in perspective, I talked to my Vietnamese friend the other day. She told me a long story about a girl who had fallen in love with someone her parents would never approve of. She had also quit her job, but was living quite far from her parents and hadn’t told them about any of it. In her need she came to my friend and asked her to help her take a loan so that she could find housing and get back on her feet. She helped her, setting up a loan in her name, letting her stay with her for a long time until she found a place of her own. My immediate reaction was; ‘Oh, that’s so nice of you to help her!!’ to which she answered; ‘Nice? It’s just normal’.

Why is helping each other considered ‘normal’ in Vietnam and ‘nice’ in Denmark? What made us so selfish? Wouldn’t we want others to help us if we needed it?

I will leave you to consider these few questions for a bit. And…. Remember to open your eyes next time you take a walk, a small effort from you, can make the world of a difference for someone else.